Jensen
Pivoting from legal to game design.
What this is
I’m a lawyer in corporate law, based in Brazil. That’s still my day job. A few hours a week, though, I’m building toward a career designing games — specifically, the systems and mechanics that make combat, abilities, and encounters feel good to play. This site is where I publish that work.
- Blog Design analyses of the games I’m playing.
- Lab Small tools I built to measure my own play, and the numbers behind the writing.
- Case studies Original design work, like an ability kit or a combat encounter. The first one is in progress.
- About Who I am and what I’m building toward.
- Contact [email protected]
Recent
The Rules Blizzard Wrote for Itself
Blizzard says every WoW Forever decision is weighed against four design pillars, and that an idea that doesn't support them doesn't ship. This is the full list of those pillars and the 22 more specific rules developers have attached to them, with the exact words, who said them and when.
Slow on Purpose
WoW Forever is built to be slow. Long leveling, raids that open weeks after launch, small gear jumps and a capped Legacy system all follow from Blizzard's design pillars. They also stretch each piece of content across more months of a subscription. Design and business point the same way, and that's worth understanding before deciding whether it's a good thing.
The Quest Text Nobody Reads
WoW Forever will stay at level 60, so its quests have to keep working after experience stops mattering. That depends on their stories landing, and in my beta they mostly don't, because the story sits in a window players skip. Hades shows where else a story can go.
From the Lab
QuestPaceLog
A World of Warcraft addon that times my quests, experience, and rest in the WoW Forever beta.
- 15:02
- average quest time, across 59 timed quests
- 57%
- of XP came from quest rewards